THE
CONNEXION
BETWEEN
TASTE AND MORALS:
TWO LECTURES
BY
MARK HOPKINS, D. D.
PRESIDENT OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE.
Boston:
PUBLISHED BY DUTTON AND WENTWORTH.
1841.
LECTURE I.
Is the prevalence of a cultivated taste, favorable to morals? Is there a
connexion, either in individuals, or in communities, between good taste
and good morals?
When I began to reflect upon this point with reference to a public
discussion of it, I put the above questions to three educated men, as I
happened to meet them. The first said, he had not thought of it, but
that, at the first view, he did not believe there was any such
connexion; the second said he should wish to see it proved before he
would believe it; and the third said, he thought there was such a
connexion. This difference of opinion among educated men, led me to
think that an investigation of the subject might be a matter of
interest, and perhaps of profit. As every thing, in this country,
depends upon a sound state of morals in the community, whatever bears
upon that, deserves our most careful scrutiny.
To discuss this subject understandingly, we must know precisely what we
are talking about. What then is taste? This term is sometimes used to
express mere desire, as a taste for dress, or for low pleasures. It can
hardly be necessary to say that that is not the meaning now attached to
it. Taste is defined by Alison, to be, "That faculty of the human mind
by which we perceive and enjoy whatever is beautiful or sublime in the
works of nature or of art." According to this definition, which is
sufficiently correct for our present purpose, it will be perceived that
there is, first, a perception of certain qualities in external objects,
and then, according to the nature of the object, an emotion of beauty,
or of sublimity in the mind. These emotions are, of course, incapable of
definition except by stating the occasions on which they arise, and can
be known only by being felt. To talk of an emotion to those who have not
felt it, is like talking of colors to the blind. And here I may remark,
that these terms, beauty and sublimity, have, in common with those
denoting sensations, an ambiguity which has often produced confusion. As
the term heat is used to denote both the sensation we feel on
approaching the fire, and that quality in the fire which produces the
sensation, so beauty and sublimity are sometimes used to express the
emotions in the mind, and sometimes those qualities in external objects
which are fitted to produce them, though there is, of course, in the
external object, no emotion, nor any thing resembling one.
If this account of taste be correct, it will be perceived that it
cannot, with any propriety, be compared, as it often has been, to a
bodily sense. The impression upon a bodily sense, necessarily follows
the presence of the object, and is uniform in all mankind. A tree
clothed in fresh foliage is necessarily seen, and seen to be green by
all who turn their eyes upon it. The same tree, when seen, may be
pronounced by one individual to be beautiful, by another, from some
peculiar association, to be the reverse, and by a third, however
beautiful in itself, it may be looked upon without any emotion at all.
It is, therefore, a great mistake to suppose, as many do, that those
qualities in objects which awaken the emotions of taste, act directly
and necessarily upon us, like those which affect the senses.
A second preliminary inquiry is, What are the causes which produce these
emotions? And here I barely remark, without inquiring after any common
principle by which they produce similar results, that these causes
differ widely from each other. The emotions may be awakened by natural
objects, by sound, by the products of the imagination, by the
combinations of the intellect, and by certain manifestations of the
affections and moral character.
A third inquiry is, how the taste can be cultivated? This obviously can
be done only on two conditions. The first is, that we put ourselves in
situations adapted to produce the emotions of taste; and the second is,
that we preserve a state of mind that will permit those emotions to
arise. This last, a proper state of mind, though less often considered,
is quite as important as the first. "It is," says the poet,
"The soul that sees; the outward eyes
Present the object, but the mind descries,
And thence delight, disgust, or cool indifference rise."
Upon him whose mind is engrossed by care, or ruffled by passion, the
most beautiful objects make no impression. To perceive and enjoy them,
the mind must be calm. The beauties and sublimities of nature are like
the stars, which the storm shuts out, but when the heavens are serene,
they come out, one after another, to the eye that is watching for them,
till the firmament glows with their light. He, therefore, and he only,
who, in a proper state of mind, will place himself in the presence of
beautiful or sublime objects, and will compare the effects produced
under different circumstances, will improve his taste, both in its
susceptibility to emotion, and in its power of discrimination.
The question then, which we are now prepared to discuss, is, whether
such a cultivation and improvement of the taste, has a favorable effect
upon the moral character?
That it has such an effect, I infer, first, because we find in the
emotions of taste, to say the least, an innocent source of enjoyment for
our leisure hours, and the mind that is innocently happy, is less
accessible to temptation. Indolence, mere vacuity, we all know, is the
porch of vice, and the great dangers to the young arise from their
leisure hours--from the want of some means of innocent mental
exhilaration, in which they can be induced to spend those hours. It was
said by Franklin, that leisure was a time in which to do something
useful; but all are not Franklins. If leisure time can be, as it is by
many, usefully employed, so much the better; but he who should provide
for our youth the means and the inducements to spend their leisure time
innocently, would be a public benefactor. In our cities, where the
temptations to mere sensual gratification are so numerous and obtrusive,
and where natural objects are very much excluded, this is a point of
great importance, and of great difficulty. Until of late very little of
this kind has been attempted, unless theatres may be called an attempt.
But theatres with us are out of the question, for Miss Martineau says
that "the Americans have very little dramatic taste; and that the spirit
of puritanism still rises up in such fierce opposition to the stage, as
to forbid the hope that this grand means of intellectual exercise will
ever be made the instrument of moral good to society there, that it
might be made." She says, moreover, so hopeless is our case, that "those
who respect dramatic entertainments the most highly, will be the most
anxious that the American theatres should be closed." Theatres are
indeed out of the question, and I trust it will be a long time before we
shall make progress backwards, to that state of morals which is produced
by the instructions even of an English theatre.
It is in view of the want now under consideration, that the
establishment of Associations for literary purposes, and for procuring
popular lectures open to all, is not only a new, but a most promising
feature in the history of our cities. Man needs, and must have,
excitement and mental exhilaration, and our Creator, if we would but see
it, has not been inattentive to this want of our frame. No; to supply
it, we have the pleasures of rational social converse, the play of the
affections, the duties of kindness and benevolence--does a man feel
depressed, let him do a good action--and last, but not least, the
gratifications of taste: all the pleasure to be derived from the concord
of sweet sounds, from the charms of literature, from the forms and
colors and groupings of nature, from her sunrisings and sunsettings,
from her landscapes of mountain and valley and lake and river, from the
stars that roll in their courses, and the flowers that nod to each other
by the way-side.--These are the sources of mental exhilaration which God
has provided; and they are, to the artificial stimulants of theatrical
exhibitions and of gambling, what the cold water that was drank in Eden
is to brandy and gin. May I not here venture to say to young men,
'Beware how you spend your _leisure_ hours! your character and destiny
in life will probably turn upon it.' Among the means, as I have already
said, of spending these hours at least innocently, the gratifications of
taste are conspicuous. They seem for this very purpose to have been had
distinctly in view in the fitting up of this world; and so far as they
lure the mind from the lower gratifications of sense, they must be
favorable to morals.
The remarks now made respect taste chiefly as a guard against evil; but
I cannot dismiss this head without noticing more fully its positive
influence, as a source of innocent enjoyment, upon morals. A good taste,
and I do not hold myself answerable for its perversions, involves a
ready susceptibility to the emotions of beauty and sublimity, and of
course a readiness to receive pleasure from the common appearances of
nature, and from every free and natural expression of good feeling. It
is, in my view, of the first importance both to character and to
happiness, that the young should cultivate a relish for those simple and
natural pleasures, the sources of which are open to all. It is important
to happiness. How much happiness does the young florist secure, who can
look upon the common violet as it opens its eye from under the snows of
the early spring, with much the same pleasure as upon the choice exotic
which is resorted to and exclusively admired by those who have
unfortunately been taught that it is vulgar to admire what is common!
How much happiness does he secure who is touched by a beautiful action
wherever he sees it, who appreciates sympathy wherever he finds it, and
however expressed! A mind rightly constituted in this respect, drinks in
enjoyment from the objects and occurrences of daily life, as the eye
does light. It is also essential to character. How many young men enter
life with a false estimate of the advantages which wealth and fashion
can confer; who find their happiness, not in the contemplation and
pursuit of appropriate objects, but in what others think of them, and to
whom the world becomes insipid unless _they_ make a figure in it! Let
now misfortune come upon such men, and the world fails them. _Their_
world is gone; they have no resource; they become, generally dishonest,
sometimes inefficient and gloomy, and commit suicide. These persons come
to consider the common and truly great blessings which God has given as
nothing unless they may possess those artificial and egotistical
enjoyments which arise from conventional society. They see not the
splendid ornaments and rich provisions which, to adopt, with a slight
accommodation, the beautiful language of another, are gathered round the
earth for them;--"its ocean of air above, its ocean of water beneath,
its zodiac of lights, its tent of dropping clouds, its striped coat of
climates, its fourfold year." It is nothing to them, if they have not
man for their servant, that "all the parts of nature incessantly work
into each other's hands for their profit; that the wind sows the seed,
the sun evaporates the sea, the wind blows the vapor to the field, the
ice on the other side of the planet condenses the rain on this, and thus
the endless circulations of the divine charity nourish man." What a
change when such a person is brought back to a true relish of the simple
pleasures of nature! Even sickness, depriving him for a time of what he
had undervalued, if it bring him back to this, is a blessing; and then
the result may be stated in the words of Gray:--
"See the wretch who long has tost
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length regain his vigor lost,
And breathe and walk again."
Then,
"The meanest flow'ret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise!"
Then, though he may hold little property by that title which the law
gives, he yet feels that the universe is his for those nobler purposes
for which it was intended to act on the spirit:
"His are the mountains, and the valleys his,
And the resplendent rivers;"
and he looks back upon his former discontent as the petulance of a
child. The simple beauties and the glad voices of nature have made him a
man again.
But again, I infer that there is a connexion between good taste and good
morals, because there is an analogy between those qualities in matter
which excite the emotions of taste, and those relations on which morals
depend. So much is this the case, that some philosophers found morality
upon a theory of the beautiful, considering it a sublime harmony. In all
beautiful objects in nature, or in art, there is an order, a propriety,
a fitness, a proportion; and the impression which these make upon us is
so analogous to that which is made by virtuous conduct, that we use the
same terms to express both. To me, indeed, it seems that beauty in
matter is to moral beauty what instinct is to reason, or what the light
of the moon is to that of the sun; containing some of the same elements,
but destitute of the highest. Hence, as we should naturally expect,
morals furnish that region in the province of taste in which she gathers
those flowers that are richest in beauty and sweetest in perfume.
"Is aught so fair,
In all the dewy landscape of the spring,
In the bright eye of Hesper, or the morn,
In nature's fairest forms, is aught so fair
As virtuous friendship?"
But I observe again, that as there is the analogy just pointed out
between their causes, so there is an affinity between the emotions
themselves of taste and correct moral feeling, and the transition from
one to the other is obvious. This point requires illustration. That our
emotions are associated in groups, is practically known to every body.
Even the child does not ask his father for a sixpence when he is in an
ill temper, because he knows the transition is not easy from ill temper
to generosity. Deep grief cannot pass at once to sudden joy. It must be
by a gradual transition, first to a tender melancholy, and then to
cheerfulness, and then to joy. "The garment of sorrow," as Coleridge
expresses it, "must be drawn off so gradually, and that to be put in its
stead so gradually slipt on and feel so like the former, that the
sufferer shall be sensible of the change only by the refreshment." It is
by understanding well these affinities of the feelings that the orator
can continue to control them as they pass over their widest range. The
necessity of a suitable state of mind in order that the emotions of
taste may arise, has already been noticed, and what I now observe is,
that a state of correct moral feeling is more favorable to these
emotions than any other. There is between them such an affinity that
they readily associate with each other; while there is, between the
emotions of taste and a vicious state of mind, no such affinity, but
they are to a great extent incompatible.
The external world often gives back to us but the image of our own
thoughts, and hence may seem almost as variable as the dim forms of
twilight to which the imagination gives its own shape. This tendency of
the mind to cast its own hue over nature, or rather to receive different
emotions from external objects, according to its own state, is well
illustrated by Crabbe, in his tale called "The Lover's Journey." In this
tale, Orlando, the lover, starts on a pleasant morning with the
expectation of finding the object of his affections at a village, where
she had agreed to meet him. The first part of his journey lay across a
heath covered with furze. But hear him:--
"Men may say
A heath is barren; nothing is so gay;
Barren or bare to call this charming scene
Argues a mind possessed by care or spleen."
And thus he went on, admiring the wholesome wormwood and the vigorous
brier, till he reached the village, and then disappointment came. The
lady had gone to a village some miles further on, under circumstances
that vexed him, and led him to doubt her affection. He doubted even
whether he should proceed, but at length determined to see and upbraid
her. Now hear him again, as he passes along by the side of a beautiful
river:--
"I hate these scenes, Orlando angry cried;
And these proud farmers, yes, I hate their pride;
See that sleek fellow, how he stalks along,
Strong as an ox, and ignorant as strong.
These deep, fat meadows I detest; it shocks
One's feelings there to see the grazing ox;--
For slaughter fatted--as a lady's smile
Rejoices man, and means his death the while."
And if mere disappointment, without a consciousness of guilt and
remorse, could produce such effects, what must we expect when the mind
is not at peace with itself? Tendencies are shown by extreme cases, and
it is in perfect consistency with the nature of things that Milton makes
Satan exclaim, on seeing Eden in its united innocence and beauty,
"O hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold!"
Who can imagine a miser, even, to say nothing of a thief, or a drunkard,
lifting his eyes from his buried heaps, and enjoying the scene before
him, however beautiful? While he who performs a deed of charity at the
end of his walk, will find nature wearing a richer dress on his return.
The mind conscious of rectitude is at peace with itself, and is in that
calm state which permits it to enjoy whatever is pleasing.
But not only, as in the cases now mentioned, is a right state of moral
feeling favorable to taste, but the emotions of taste also tend to
introduce moral ideas and emotions. It is, as I conceive, chiefly from
this fact that nature has a tendency to lead the mind "up to nature's
God;" for we must all be conscious that when we view nature as beautiful
or sublime, this tendency is strongest. No one can have stood by
Niagara, or upon the White Mountains, without feeling this. Hence the
groves and the high hills were the first places of worship. Hence the
Indian sacrifices to the Great Spirit when he passes through the wild
rapids. And as we associate the beauties of nature with the wisdom and
goodness of God, so do we, in many cases, instinctively infer from the
displays of taste in man, something of his moral character. Who, for
example, in travelling through a solitary forest, if he should come, as
there are many such, to a neat log-house, with a trellised woodbine at
the door, and with every thing orderly and clean about it, would not
expect to pass by unmolested, or, if he should call, to be civilly and
kindly treated?--whereas, if every thing bore the appearance of filth
and dilapidation, and the only signs of taste were those which indicated
a taste for rum, he might well quicken his pace for fear he should be
waylaid. No one expects to find indications of taste about the dwelling
of a drunkard, or of one abandoned to any low vice. I appeal to any one
who hears me, whether he has not felt that it was an indication of a
good moral character, and an encouragement to charity, when he has
entered some poor dwelling and found that there was still kept alive, in
the midst of poverty, a susceptibility to the emotions, and a regard to
the requisitions of taste.
I have just observed, that there is an affinity between correct moral
feeling and the emotions of taste. I now observe, that the highest
pleasures of taste cannot be enjoyed without correct views on great
moral subjects, and especially respecting the being and attributes of
God. Whatever may be said of the power of material objects, in
themselves considered, to produce the emotions of taste, it is certain
that their chief power depends on the conceptions of the mind which they
awaken as signs. A single instance will illustrate this. Most of us have
probably felt the emotion of sublimity on hearing what we supposed to be
distant thunder, which vanished, and perhaps seemed ridiculous, the
moment we ascertained that the sound was produced by the rumbling of a
cart. In this case, it is obvious that the emotion depended, not on the
sound itself, but on the conception of the mind awakened by it. Now this
is pre-eminently the case in the works of nature. How different must be
the emotions awakened by a view of the evening firmament in the mind of
him who should suppose the stars to be mere points of light, set at no
great distance above him, and moving around the earth solely for the
convenience of man, from those awakened in the mind of him to whom those
points of light indicate the existence of an infinite space; and of
suns, and worlds, and systems without number, and at distances which
cause the wing of the strongest imagination to flag! How different the
emotions produced by the comet now, as it returns at its predicted
period, from those excited as it fired
"the length of Ophiucus huge
In the Arctic sky, and, from his horrid hair,"
was supposed to shake "pestilence and war!" As, therefore, he who cannot
see beyond the stars as they appear to the sense, must lose by far the
highest pleasure which they are adapted as objects of taste to give; so
he who knows the physical structure of the universe, and who yet does
not see in it, and behind it, an infinite and beneficent Intelligence,
cannot have connected with his view those conceptions which awaken the
highest emotions of beauty and sublimity.
The relations of man to nature are much less intimate than those of God,
and yet our emotions in view of nature are greatly modified by the view
which we take of _His_ dignity and moral character. It was when Hamlet
supposed there was foul corruption and a general want of principle in
society, that "this goodly frame, the earth," seemed to him but "a
steril promontory;" "this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this
brave o'erhanging firmament," why, it appeared no other thing to him
"than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors." It was when her
inhabitants were oppressed and degraded, that the natural beauty, which
is still as bright as ever on the shores of Greece, seemed in the eye of
the poet but as
"The loveliness in death
That parts not quite with parting breath,
But beauty with that fearful bloom,
That hue which haunts it to the tomb,
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start, for life is wanting there."
"'Twas Greece, but living Greece no more."
We must all have felt that a shade of sadness was cast over the face of
nature when we have thought of the passions, and wars, and lust, and
rapine of man, in connexion with her quiet scenes. On the other hand,
were the moral state of the world what we trust it shall one day
be,--did universal purity, and goodness, and love reign,--would not the
sun seem to shine with a more benignant radiance; instead of the thorn,
would there not come up the fir-tree: would not the mountains and hills
break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field clap their
hands?
And if the emotions of taste are thus modified by our views of man, how
much more must they be by those respecting God! How must a blank atheism
hang the heavens in sackcloth, and cover the earth with a pall, and turn
the mute promisings of nature into a mockery, and make of her mighty
fabric one great charnel-house of death, without the hope of a
resurrection! On the other hand, how must the beauty and sublimity of
nature and of the universe be heightened, the moment we perceive them in
their connexion with God! Nothing is more common than to hear those, who
emerge from that practical atheism in which most men live, speak of the
new perceptions of beauty and sublimity with which they look upon the
works of nature:--
"In that blest moment, Nature, throwing wide
Her veil opaque, discloses, with a smile,
The Author of her beauties, who, retired
Behind his own creation, works unseen
By the _impure_, and hears his power denied."
All our investigations into nature show that man has no faculties to
which there are not corresponding and adequate objects. As infinite as
he is in reason, yet the works of God are not exhausted by the
operations of that reason. No intellectual Alexander ever sat down and
wept for the want of more worlds to conquer. As vast as is his
imagination, the revelations of astronomy, as sober facts, go beyond any
thing that the imagination had conceived. And is it so, that, in the
region of taste alone, the faculties of man have no adequate object? But
it is only when nature, like the Bible, is seen to be full of God, that
she is clothed with her true sublimity. It is only when "the heavens
declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handy work," that
they correspond to the highest conceptions either of the taste or of the
intellect. Man rests in the Infinite alone, and the universe without a
God is not in harmony with his constitution, even when he is considered
as endowed with taste only. But if our views on moral subjects thus
modify the emotions of taste, it cannot be doubted that those emotions
react upon our moral views, tending to elevate and purify them.
I remark again, that the emotions of taste are favorable to morals,
because they are disinterested. As admiration becomes intense, men
forget themselves, and, in proportion as they thus find enjoyment, they
are prepared for that higher enjoyment which a disinterested performance
of duty brings with it. Whenever we see excellence in another, we are
bound to admire it without reference to sect or party; and admiration,
thus bestowed, is almost always connected with a high moral character.
The beauty who can truly forget herself in her admiration for another,
deserves admiration for qualities far higher and nobler than beauty.
I only observe further, that a cultivated taste is favorable to morals,
because the cultivation of one of our powers has a tendency to
strengthen the rest.--This, I know, is disputed, and it is even supposed
that the union of certain powers in any high degree is impossible. Thus,
it is often supposed that a remarkable memory and a sound judgment do
not go together; and it must be confessed that the memory may be so
cultivated as not to strengthen the judgment. But when I speak of
cultivating a faculty, I mean cultivating it on correct principles and
with reference to the end for which it was given. Those who remember
events as isolated, or only as they are connected by the relations of
time and place, and who do not see and remember them as connected by the
relations of cause and effect, means and end, premises and conclusion,
do not, by such an exercise of the memory, strengthen the judgment,
though they certainly show that it has great need of being strengthened.
Of what possible use can it be, to the forming of a correct judgment on
any point, for a good woman to remember the precise age of every child
in the neighborhood? It is these walking chronicles, these living
almanacs, who will tell you the weather for all time past, if not for
all time to come, who get the credit of having great memories and little
judgment. But such a memory is, to one cultivated on correct principles,
only what a room full of minerals and birds and fish and insects and
rubbish, promiscuously tumbled together, is to a well-arranged museum.
Who does not know that experience is the best enlightener of the
judgment?--And where does experience garner her stores but in the
memory? It is obvious that he who has the best memory of past events, in
their true connexions, will have the best possible materials for forming
a judgment of the future. The same opposition is generally supposed to
exist between the imagination and the judgment. But it occasionally
happens that an individual, like Edmund Burke, unites the most gorgeous
imagination with the profoundest judgment; and then it is seen that the
analogies which the imagination suggests yield important lights to the
judgment instead of misleading it. I know that the imagination, striking
its roots into the hotbed of novel-reading, may overtop the judgment;
but, judiciously cultivated, I contend that it is not unfavorable to the
judgment. And if, in these cases, a judicious cultivation of one power
tends to strengthen the other, much more will the cultivation of taste
have a favorable tendency upon the moral nature, since these departments
of the mind have never been supposed to be in opposition, but are, as we
have seen, closely allied to each other.
But all this time it has probably been objected that, however plausible
the reasoning may be on this subject, it is yet contrary to experience.
If it were so, it might perhaps be said of it, as was said by Euler of a
demonstrated property of the arch, "this is contrary to all experience,
but is nevertheless true:"--it is so in the nature of things, but the
materials are refractory. But let us see how far it is contrary to
experience; or rather, whether we cannot, so far as it is thus contrary,
satisfactorily account for it.
In order to this, we must make, as it seems to me, three important
distinctions. And, first, we must distinguish between taste considered
as a power of judging, and as a susceptibility to emotion. This
distinction is often overlooked. Mr. Blair, for instance, defines taste
to be, "the power of receiving pleasure or pain from the beauties or
deformities of nature and of art;" in which, regard is had to the
susceptibility only. But afterwards, when contrasting taste with genius,
he says--"Taste is the power of judging, genius is the power of
executing;" in which the susceptibility to emotion is left out of sight.
Can I make this distinction obvious? When an unpractised person sees for
the first time a grand historical picture, or reads a beautiful poem, he
gives himself up to the emotion; he is absorbed; he takes no note of
time; he forgets where he is, and neither knows nor cares why he is
pleased. The eye drinks in beauty as the thirsty man the cold water, and
it refreshes the soul. He sees the picture, or reads the poem, again and
again, and at length sits down to give an account to a friend of that
which had pleased him. Now, he wishes to state the reasons why he was
pleased, and he begins to inquire what those qualities were which
produced the effect. Here is the rudiment of philosophical criticism,
and he goes on perhaps investigating, till he discovers those general
principles of taste according to which the work was executed. As long,
however, as his mind is thus occupied in analyzing, he feels no emotion
of beauty or sublimity. But as this is an enticing species of logic, he
may follow it till a work of art shall give him pleasure only by its
conformity to certain principles, true or false, which he may have
established for himself, and till he becomes a cold critic, or perhaps a
reviewer by trade. He may become a mere teller in the bank of taste, to
pronounce on what is genuine, and hand it over to others to be used and
enjoyed. Now, a man who writes a skilful review of a work of genius, and
tells us why we are or ought to be pleased, is supposed to be a man of
taste; and the writing of the review is considered as an exercise of
taste. This is true of taste considered as a power of judging, but not
as a power of feeling. If it were so, the mass of men would be in a
pitiable condition. God no more intended that the uninitiated should
wait to be pleased with the beauty which they see, until its principles
are analyzed, and they are told when and why they ought to be pleased,
than He intended they should wait to be cheered and warmed by the rays
of the sun, till they should see light decomposed into the seven colors
of the prismatic image. But it is by cherishing and keeping alive these
universal emotions, which belong to the race, and which find excitement
everywhere, that I suppose there is a healthful effect produced on the
moral character. The power of genuine philosophical criticism; the power
of going back, if I may so express it, into the workshop of nature, and
seeing how she mixes her colors, is a rare, a valuable and a dignified
power; but it is still an exercise of the intellect, and I am not aware
that it has any peculiarly favorable effect upon the moral character.
Indeed, when literature and the fine arts become fashionable, and much
the subject of conversation, there is a vast deal of this kind of
criticism, which is fallen into from imitation and vanity, and which can
have no good effect upon morals except as it supplies the place of
scandal. It is not, then, in an egotistical and vain community, who read
works of genius, and look at pictures, not to admire and enjoy them, but
that they may themselves talk about them and be admired, that any good
effect upon the moral character is to be expected from the prevalence of
what they are pleased to call taste. How far this comes to be the case
with communities in which taste is said to be prevalent, and morals are
corrupt, I leave others to judge.
The second distinction which I would make, is that between the
cultivation of a taste for the fine arts and for natural objects. This I
consider a distinction of much importance on this subject; and I propose
to give some reasons why the cultivation of the fine arts--as painting,
sculpture, architecture, poetry--has less tendency than a taste for
natural objects to improve the character. This I am bound to do; because
it is well known that certain nations, as the Spartans and ancient
Romans, considered a taste for the fine arts as having a tendency to
corrupt morals; and some of the sterner moralists of modern times,
especially religious moralists, have objected to it on the same ground.
It must also be conceded that those nations, as the Greeks and Italians,
among whom these arts have flourished most, have been exceedingly
corrupt, and that that corruption has co-existed with an advanced state
of the arts in question.
And, first, I remark, that a taste for the fine arts cannot be general
in a community of any considerable extent. If we suppose such a taste,
when formed, to have a tendency to improve the morals, yet how few, in a
country like ours, have an opportunity to form it! The products of the
arts are to be found, for the most part, only in cities; and of the
inhabitants of cities, it is only those who have leisure and wealth, who
are affected by them. It ought also to be observed that, as these arts
do not come to perfection in the early stages of society, they cannot
produce their effect till wealth and luxury have had time to work
general corruption.
But I observe again that, as the power either of executing or of judging
in these arts is confined to comparatively a few, it becomes a mark of
distinction and a ground of ostentation, and thus there comes to be the
appearance of more taste than there really is. The artist finds himself
a candidate for fame and wealth through his skill, and hence his
passions are aroused and his interests are involved. If successful, he
is flattered, perhaps almost deified; if unsuccessful, he becomes
irritable and sinks back on the proud consciousness of neglected merit.
This peculiar position will account for the bad character of many
artists. Those also who _patronize_ the arts, as it is significantly
termed, often do it from ostentation. What better resource has an
ordinary person who has money, and who wishes to be distinguished in the
fashionable world, than to become a patron of the fine arts? I knew a
person who spent several thousand dollars for pictures, and who, to my
certain knowledge, knew and cared nothing about them except as they
affected her standing in the fashionable world. But of those who have a
good degree of taste, there are few whose motives are not mixed. And
then it is to be remembered, that a product of art may be viewed in many
different aspects. It may be regarded as costing so much, as requiring
such a frame, or to be placed in such a light, or as an ornamental piece
of furniture, while there is but a single point of view in which it can
be regarded as gratifying taste. The moment a picture comes to be
considered as an ornament, or an article of furniture, you might as well
have a looking-glass or a pier-table. It not unfrequently happens, that
the owner of fine pictures thinks so much of them as ornamental or
valuable, so much of their framing, or light, or preservation, that he
becomes indifferent to them in the only point of view in which they are
truly valuable.
But again, in order to see this point in its true light we must consider
the peculiar rank which is held by the pleasures connected with the fine
arts. These pleasures are addressed to the eye and to the ear, and hold
a middle rank between the lower pleasures of sense on the one hand, and
the higher enjoyments of the intellect and of the affections on the
other; and may readily associate with, and promote either. This point is
well stated by Lord Kames. It is observed by him, that "in touching,
tasting, and smelling, we are sensible of the impression made upon the
organ, and are led to place there the pleasant or painful feeling caused
by that impression;" but that with respect to hearing and seeing, "we
are insensible to the organic impression, and hence conceive the
pleasures derived from these senses to be more refined and spiritual
than those which seem to exist externally at the organ of sense, and
which are conceived to be merely corporeal. These pleasures," says he,
"being sweet and moderately exhilarating, are, in their tone, equally
distant from the turbulence of passion and the languor of indolence, and
by that tone are perfectly well qualified not only to revive the spirits
when sunk by sensual gratification, but also to relax them when
overstrained in any violent pursuit." "Organic pleasures," he observes
again, "have naturally a short duration; when prolonged, they lose their
relish; when indulged to excess, they beget satiety and disgust; and to
restore a proper tone of mind, nothing can be more happily contrived
than the exhilarating pleasures of the eye and ear." Now this is
precisely the use, and all the use that many make of the fine arts, and
I may add, to some extent of the beauties of nature too. How many
wealthy sensualists are there in our cities who give an appearance of
elevation and refinement to their low and selfish mode of life, by
collecting about them specimens of the arts! These men may be best
compared to that amphibious animal, the frog. They come up occasionally
from that lower element in which they live, into a region of light and
beauty, but no sooner are they a little refreshed than they plunge again
into the mud of sensual gratification. It is men like these, who, when
their capacity for the lower pleasures is exhausted, drive in their
carriages about the cities of the old world (perhaps we are not yet
sufficiently corrupt,) and set up to be _virtuosi_. It is easy to see
how such a taste must bear upon morals.
But I remark once more, that the fine arts may be made to pander
directly to vice. From the middle rank which the pleasures derived from
them hold, they readily associate, as has been said, both with the
higher and the lower. Thus, music may quicken the devotions of a seraph,
and lend its strains to cheer the carousals of the bacchanal; and
poetry, painting and sculpture, while they have power to elevate, and
charm, and purify the mind, may be made direct stimulants to the vilest
and lowest passions. It is indeed from this quarter that we are to look
for danger from the prevalence of these arts. It was thus that they
corrupted the ancient cities; and those who have seen the abominable
statuary dug from the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, do not wonder
that they were buried under a sea of fire. The same process of
corruption through these arts has gone to a fearful extent on the
eastern continent, and has commenced in this country. Clothed in this
garment of light, vice finds access where it otherwise could not. Under
the pretence of promoting the fine arts, modesty is cast aside, and
indecent pictures are exhibited, and respectable people go to see them.
If I might utter a word of warning to the young, it would be to beware
of vice dressed in the garments of taste. The beauties of nature are
capable of no such perversion. All the associations connected with them
tend to elevate and to purify the mind. No case can be adduced in which
a taste for gardening or for natural objects has corrupted a people.
While, therefore, I believe that the cultivation of the arts, in their
genuine spirit of beauty and of purity, has a tendency to improve the
character, it would appear that they are greatly liable to abuse, and
that they have been extensively abused.
But though I may thus dispose of the general objection from the
co-existence in many cases of refinement in the arts and corrupt morals,
yet this, I think, will not fully meet the objection which first arose
in the minds of some, from those numerous individual instances in which
men have been eminent for taste and genius, and at the same time
corrupt. What, you have been ready to say, do you make of such a case
as that of Byron? Now I would here make an inquiry, how far, and in what
sense, those productions of genius which have a corrupt tendency are
really consistent with good taste. Take the Don Juan of Byron for
instance. To say nothing of principle, such a work certainly is not
compatible with a correct _moral_ taste. That it is in some sense,
however, a work of taste, cannot be denied; but it seems to me to be
only as a splendid palace, built in a low and fetid morass, is a work of
taste. The palace may be beautiful, but it was in bad taste _to set it
there_. Particular rooms may be elegantly furnished, but still there
comes up from the surrounding marsh a pestilential miasm, and it may be
said of the atmosphere around it, as was said of that around New Orleans
a few autumns since, that "all is beauty and all is death." So far
therefore as these works have a corrupt tendency, they cannot be said to
be in the highest sense consistent with good taste. But still it is said
that corrupt men have produced works of the highest genius and of the
best taste that have had no such tendency. This is granted, but it is to
be accounted for from the fact that men of genius are often men of
strong passions and of wayward and unbalanced minds, and from the
peculiar temptations in which, as I have already said, they are placed.
Taste seems to me to be, to such men, what the music of David was to
Saul,--it charms away the evil spirit, but it is only for a time.
But we now pass to the third distinction which was to be made, and that
is, between a true taste for natural objects and the fine arts, and
what is called taste in the world of fashion. The point of distinction
to which I would draw your attention is well stated by Stewart. "It is
obvious," says he, "that the circumstances which please in the objects
of taste are of two kinds: first, those which are fitted to please by
nature, or by associations which all mankind are led to form by their
common condition; and secondly, those which please in consequence of
associations arising from local and accidental circumstances. Hence
there are two kinds of taste; the one enabling us to judge of those
beauties which have a foundation in the human constitution; the other,
of such objects as derive their principal recommendation from the
influence of fashion. These two kinds of taste are not always united in
the same person; indeed, I am inclined to think that they are united but
rarely. The perfection of the one depends much on the degree in which we
are able to free the mind from the influence of casual associations;
that of the other, on the contrary, depends on a faculty of association
which enables us to fall in at once with all the turns of the fashion,
and, as Shakspeare expresses it, to catch the tune of the times."
Association is the sole foundation of the value which we put upon some
articles, and of the beauty which we find in others. Thus, a lock of
hair, valueless in itself, may, from associations connected with it,
have a value which money cannot measure; and articles of dress, which
would otherwise be to us indifferent, or odious, become beautiful by
their association with those persons whom we have been accustomed to
consider as models of elegance. It is indeed astonishing what an effect
this principle will have upon our feelings; and from looking too
exclusively at facts connected with it, some have been led to doubt
whether there is any such thing as a permanent principle of taste. It
would really seem, that, within the bounds of comfort and decency, both
of which are often outraged by fashion, one mode of dress may come to be
as becoming as another. The wigs, the knee-buckles, the small-clothes,
the long-skirts and cocked-hats of our grandfathers, were as becoming
then, as is now the dress of the present day. Says Sir Joshua Reynolds,
"If an European, when he has cut off his beard, and put false hair on
his head, or bound up his own natural hair in regular hard knots, as
unlike nature as he can possibly make it, and after having rendered them
immovable by the help of the fat of hogs, has covered the whole with
flour, laid on by a machine with the utmost regularity; if, when thus
attired, he issues forth and meets a Cherokee Indian, who has bestowed
as much time at _his_ toilet, and laid on, with equal care and
attention, his yellow and red ochre on particular parts of his forehead
or cheeks, as he judges most becoming; whoever of these two despises the
other for his attention to the fashion of his country; whichever feels
himself provoked to laugh, is the barbarian." Good taste with respect to
the fashions, then, would seem to consist, not in following them, or in
paying them attention, except so far as to avoid attracting notice in
any way by dress; for it is a strong indication, when a person seeks
notice from that, that there is about him little else that is worthy of
notice. The foundation of taste in the fashions, however, being what I
have now stated, it is obvious that a quick perception of their
ever-varying changes and a ready and careful accommodation to them, can
belong, whether in man or woman, only to a mind essentially frivolous;
and that such a taste, if not absolutely incompatible with a perception
of all that is permanently grand and beautiful in the works of God, is
yet seldom connected with it. Such a taste must, of course, rather
injure than promote good morals.
I have now considered taste as exercised indifferently upon any objects
within its appropriate province. It still remains that I should say
something, which I propose to do in another Lecture, on Moral Taste, or
on taste having moral actions for its object.
LECTURE II.
It was observed on a former occasion, that material objects produce
their effect upon taste chiefly as signs; but it is the opinion of Mr.
Alison, of Mr. Jeffries, and others of high authority on this point,
that it is solely as signs--solely as suggesting intellectual and moral
qualities--that they have an effect. It is quite evident that mere
matter in a chaotic state, or in any state which is not either produced
by mind or such as mind would produce, cannot be beautiful; and hence it
is said that it can be beautiful only as a means of indicating qualities
that do not belong to itself.